Playfish Raises $17M for Social Games

Playfish announced today that it had raised $17 million in a Series B round of investment led by Accel Partners, which invested $1 million in July, and Index Ventures. Playfish develops and publishes games for social networks, "combining the best elements of casual games, social networks, MMOGs and virtual worlds to create entirely new, more social ways of enjoying great games together." For the most part, its games are purely casual, though Pet Society, with 2,511,180 active monthly users on Facebook, lets users care for pets, decorate their houses, and socialize with other users in its lightweight virutal world. Accel's Kevin Comolli and Index's Ben Holmes will join the Playfish board.

 “Social gaming is the new frontier for the gaming industry and is rapidly becoming a major focal point for social networks,” Comolli said in a statement. “The Playfish team has established a position of leadership in the space, hosting more than two billion monthly minutes of play time. As an early and continued investor in Playfish, our goal continues to be to support the company as it continues to grow, and help the team to build upon its current momentum.”